Portfolio Turnover.
The Fund
may pay transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are
held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in Annual Fund Operating Expenses or in the Example, affect the Fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund's portfolio turnover rate was 9% of the average value of
its portfolio.
Principal Investment
Strategies
The Underlying Index is a free float-adjusted
market capitalization-weighted index designed to measure the combined equity market performance of developed and emerging markets countries, excluding the United States. Components primarily include consumer staples, energy, financial, industrials
and materials companies. The components of the Underlying Index, and the degree to which these components represent certain industries, may change over time. As of June 30, 2012, the Underlying Index consisted of companies in the following countries
or regions: Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark,
Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa,
South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom (together, the “ACWI ex US countries”).
BFA uses a “passive” or indexing approach to try to
achieve the Fund’s investment objective. Unlike many investment companies, the Fund does not try to “beat” the index it tracks and does not seek temporary defensive positions when markets decline or appear overvalued.
Indexing may eliminate the chance that the Fund will
substantially outperform the Underlying Index but also may reduce some of the risks of active management, such as poor security selection. Indexing seeks to achieve lower costs and better after-tax performance by keeping portfolio turnover low in
comparison to actively managed investment companies.
BFA
uses a representative sampling indexing strategy to manage the Fund. “Representative sampling” is an